| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Frances Waldeaux by Rebecca Davis: was scaly with age, but the crest upon it was the noblest
in Bavaria; in the cabinet of portraits of ancient
beauties in the royal palace he showed her indifferently
two or three of his aunts and grandmothers, and in the
historical picture of the anointing of the great
Charlemagne, one of his ancestors, stout and good-humored
as Hugo himself, supported the emperor.
"The pudgy little man," said Jean one day, somehow
belongs to the old world of knights and
crusaders--Sintram and his companions. He will make it
all real to Lucy when she marries him. He is like Ali
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mother by Owen Wister: if you made it. It's what I call thoughtless safety, and it brings you
about 3 1-2 per cent, as I have already shown you. Anybody can do it.'"
These words of Mr. Beverly made me feel that I did not want to do what
anybody could do. 'There is another kind of safety which I call
thoughtful safety,' said he. 'Thoughtful, because it requires you to
investigate properties and their earnings, and generally to use your
independent judgment after a good deal of work. And all this a trustee
greatly dislikes. It rewards you with five and even six per cent, but
that is no stimulus to a trustee.'"
"Something in me had leaped when Mr. Beverly mentioned six per cent.
Again I thought of Ethel and October, and what a difference it would be
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: your tears, Ilbrahim, and be my child, as I will be your mother."
The good woman prepared the little bed, from which her own
children had successively been borne to another resting-place.
Before Ilbrahim would consent to occupy it, he knelt down, and as
Dorothy listened to his simple and affecting prayer, she
marvelled how the parents that had taught it to him could have
been judged worthy of death. When the boy had fallen asleep, she
bent over his pale and spiritual countenance, pressed a kiss upon
his white brow, drew the bedclothes up about his neck, and went
away with a pensive gladness in her heart.
Tobias Pearson was not among the earliest emigrants from the old
Twice Told Tales |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: I heard that your father had taken you away with him, but I felt
sure that you could not live away from me for long, and when I
met you in the Champs-Elysees, I was a little upset, but by no
means surprised.
Then began that series of days; each of them brought me a fresh
insult from you. I received them all with a kind of joy, for,
besides proving to me that you still loved me, it seemed to me as
if the more you persecuted me the more I should be raised in your
eyes when you came to know the truth.
Do not wonder at my joy in martyrdom, Armand; your love for me
had opened my heart to noble enthusiasm.
Camille |
